1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to viewing radar video data provided by a missile radar video seeker. More specifically, the present invention relates to a computer software program which displays recorded radar video data in a graphical form depicting a plurality of radar scans.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There is currently a need to play back recorded radar video data obtained from a missile seeker in a graphical form depicting a plurality of radar scans. There is also a need for the display of the radar video data to appear like a display viewed by an oscilloscope with probes connected directly to the radar video signals output by the missile seeker. The signals encoded by the radar video data include a master trigger, radar video and a detection gate.
In the past, the device used to view the radar video data obtained from a missile radar seeker in a graphical form comprised a radar video data viewer of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,425,919 entitled Radar Video Data Viewer which issued to Christian L. Houlberg on Sep. 16, 2008. The viewer described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,425,919 is based upon Microsoft Corporation's Excel program and is only capable of statistically displaying individual radar scans recorded in a radar video data format onboard the platform carrying the seeker. In addition the viewer of U.S. Pat. No. 7,425,919 requires that the data be in an ASCII form and limited to files of approximately 55 megabytes in size which severely limits its usefulness. As a comparison, the original binary data, recorded in the platform's onboard telemeter radar video data format is contained in a file that is approximately four gigabytes in size.
There is a requirement to play back radar video data acquired from a seeker over a time period spanning from four minutes up to twenty minutes which covers the time period for a platform to a target. For example, a four minute file is approximately four Gigabytes and twenty minute file is approximately twenty Gigabytes.